[nabs-l] Google Docs accessibility

[Katie Wang]

Hi all,

I wrote to the list to inquire about your experiences of using Google
Docs with JAWS a while ago, and the consensus at the time was that the
service is largely inaccessible. I have been able to get around this
problem by using Dropbox on certain occasions, but people by and large
prefer to use Google Docs and I often have to ask for edits to be
added on my behalf or for the latest version of the document to be
emailed to me. However, I recently came across
www.google.com/accessibility, which claims that many of the Google
products we typically consider inaccessible, such as Docs and
Calendar, are compatible with JAWS 12 or newer. In response to this
seemingly encouraging announcement, I gave Google Docs another try,
but when I opened any shared spreadsheet or document JAWS says
"Application Mode On" and does not read anything else. Pressing
Control plus Slash brought up a list of keyboard navigation shortcuts
mentioned in the accessibility page above, but none of those works.

I'm somewhat baffled by this situation since I'm using the latest
version of JAWS and Internet Explorer. Am I missing something, or is
Google making inaccurate claims about the accessibility of their
products? Has anyone here had any success with using Google Docs? Any
thoughts would be much appreciated!

Katie